MADCookie

Experimenting tonight: I made Australian pancakes from my Joy cookbook and granola bars from my May Food Network magazine.

Australian Pancakes

  These were fun to make. They are basically individual meringue globs fried in butter then baked. They were airy and delicious, but I was the only one who thought the latter.

Granola Bars

Recipe:

GranolaBars.txt (1.68 kb)

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Incredible! I just made this tonight and it is incredible!

http://www.amishmart.com/recipe-p10002.html

I have a few differences.

1) I made a bunch more of the cinnamon mixture

2) Spread some in the bottom of the bowl that was going to receive the popped corn

3) I made the corn just like I normally do kettle. I put in white sugar and when it started to pop again, then I added the remain cinnamon mixture. This means the corn was popping in a cinnamon sugar pot.

4) I pour the popped corn in the bowl that had the cinnamon and then I tossed it all together.

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We love Goldfish crackers & Cheeze Its, so I thought I could make my own.

I followed this recipe:
http://dlynz.blogspot.com/2008/09/cheese-crackers.html

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After Liz's visit, we talked about what can someone do with almonds besides eating straight. I suggested almond butter. Now I finally made it.

I roasted in my oven at 250° for about 30 minutes a good handful of almonds. After they cooled completely, I ground them in my food processor until they became butter. Very simply and very good flavor. I would describe the taste as smoother then peanut butter.









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I made a few treats for Les's book show today. Below are tapas almonds. They are basically blanched almonds roasted and lightly salted.

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Using a pound of strawberries that didn't look good enough to eat, I made this strawberry sauce recipe

Here is a cruller from Krispy Kreme.

Here it is with strawberry sauce.

Ice cream also begs for the sauce.

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It was starts with peaches. Thanks again to Janean & her parents for the terrific peaches.

Recipe: Chunky Peach Spread

 
Sauce pan of 1.5 lbs of peaches.

Simmering peaches


Final product. As of right now, I'm hoping more time in the refrigerator will help it set harder. Right now, it tastes good, but is very runny.

I think there are a lot of applications for this jam. I could put it on ice cream. I could stir it into some juices. I bet I could use it as a meat glaze too.

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Basic Recipe:

1 Cup almonds

1/2 Cup sugar

Note: this ratio will be lots of sugar coating. Double the almonds to reduce the final sugar coating. 2 C almonds is a good coating.

Add sugar to a nonstick skillet

Turn the heat to high. Add the almonds.

The sugar is melting

Most of the sugar is melted. The color continues to darken as it cooks. The almonds might pop under the blanket of the hot melted sugar. Watch the heat. As the sugar melts, lower the heat so everything doesn't burn. The goal is to have all the sugar melt without burning.

Once the sugar melts completely, you need to pour it out to a metal mixing bowl to cool and seperate. This gets a little tricky (and hot). Tip: pour it out to a large cookie sheet and push it all down to make a simple layer. Cool a bit and seperate the almonds from the motherload.

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Now time for some variations

Sweet Cayenne Pepper

Basic recipe plus 1 T cayenne pepper and a dash of salt

Brown Cinnamon Sugar

Basic recipe plus 2T brown sugar and 1 T ground cinnamon

Candied Pecans

In the basic recipe, swap out pecans for the almonds. These are the very best on salads.

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Several co-workers and I went to Great News Cooking School for a class regarding a So Cal menu. This is a hands-on class where we get some instructions regarding the meal, but we do the work to bring it together. It is a lot of fun especially because we were working in a very modern kitchen with every gadget you can imagine.

Menu

• Ancho chili dip with grilled shrimp and crudites
• Hearts of palm salad with cilantro vinaigrette
• Chipotle glazed salmon with roasted corn and black bean pico de gallo
• Rancho potatoes
• Garlic roasted asparagus
• Orange almond layer cake with chocolate ganache frosting

I'm in the middle with the green apron. My team was responsible for the salmon dish. Each menu item is divided up to the tables of people. We then work on the item as a table. Our table made the salad and the salmon, so we divided up the tasks a little.

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